Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…
Nick Cohen’s Turning a Blind Eye to Misogyny andClive James’ A Veil of Silence Over Murder.
He is also passionate about poetry — Haussman, Shakespeare, Yeats — and admits to being “rather embarrassingly, rather shamingly moved to tears when I read poetry aloud”.
Alan Turing is almost one of the forgotten computer pioneers and a hero of World War II. Hardly surprising really; it was the British Government who stripped him of his security clearance at GCHQ when he was convicted in 1952 of being homosexual and who put him under surveillance. He was also sentenced to receive “treatment” – a course of drugs that had the effect of chemically castrating him, and which caused him to grow breasts. As a result, he committed suicide at the age of 41 by eating an apple laced with cyanide. The symbol of the half-eaten apple lives on today as the trademark of Apple Computer, in what may be an apocryphal reference to Turing’s role in pioneering computer science and to the manner of his death.
I have to say that over the last twenty years, public knowledge of both the man’s achievements and his persecution have grown, but I am still surprised when I come across folks working today in the computer industry who know nothing about him other than the fact that there’s something called the Turing Test.
Now, a British computer scientist, John Graham-Cumming, has had the idea of petitioning the British Government to make a formal apology to Turing. I’ve added my name to the list of signatories (only open to UK citizens), even though I have some reservations. First, and most obviously, it’s a bit late for Turing. But perhaps more importantly, he wasn’t the only homosexual to have had their life destroyed by the poisonous bigotry of the society at the time. An apology to him should really be an apology to all. I see that Richard Dawkins has become involved with the campaign. He makes the point that a practical outcome would be for the Government to provide a permanent financial endowment to Bletchley Park, where Turing and others contributed so much to the wartime effort.
The campaign also got a mention on Channel 4 News:
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1184614595
I note, however, that in keeping with the slipping standards of journalism these days, the video is titled, and introduced, as the campaign to “pardon” him. It’s not a pardon – it’s an apology, you stupid people! Honestly, education standards are not what they were in my day…
Oh, and one last connection: I used to live practically around the corner from where he was born in Maida Vale…
Update: Well, Turing got his apology! Well done to John Graham-Cumming for having the idea in the first place.
[…] agreed wholeheartedly with the petition raised a few years ago for him to receive a posthumous formal apology from the British Government. And I was delighted when the apology was […]
The annual four-day walking event in this part of the Netherlands began today in Doetinchem. I happened to be passing by part of the route and noticed that some unexpected participants appear to be joining in.
I probably should have a series of posts like this. There are times when I look at things in my adopted country, and think to myself (often with a smattering of pride or alternatively, complete incomprehension): “Only in the Netherlands…”
Here’s a case in point, It’s an advert designed to get gay people (because it was on the back cover of the most recent issue of the Gay Krant – the Dutch magazine for gay folks) to apply to become members of the Dutch police force. Translated, it says: “Police, captivating work! – also for you?”. I should perhaps point out that this advert is one of those that I feel proud of.
The gentleman in the picture is Hans Klok, a Dutch magician.
I was mowing the lawns today, when suddenly I noticed something in front of the mower. First of all I thought it was a bundle of grass, and was about to carry on. Then I looked more closely and paused…
I think it’s a green chaffinch fledgling. It does seem a bit late in the season to have fledglings, but what do I know?
LOL love it!!!! Well, lets face it – they don’t eat pig so I guess they need to take every precaution against catching the swine flu as well ha ha ha 😉
The nearest small town to us, Varsseveld, is currently holding its annual four-day carnival. I went along to see the carnival parade last night. Nice atmosphere, with some good floats on show. A tradition in The Netherlands is to decorate the floats with thousands of flowers. There were some good examples last night. The most bizarre, however, was a float that represented a huge dung beetle, rolling an even larger ball of dung – the entire thing being covered in flowers and waste. Only in The Netherlands…
Wow! what a beautiful sight and with such imagination too. Have you ever seen the carnival in Jersey CI?, they use flowers too. Do they have the same insurance problems we encounter over here? … or are they more relaxed about it? Our ‘no win – no fee’ culture is tapping into everything these days, including our enjoyment! Bah, humbug!
No, I’ve never been to Jersey. The first Flower Parade I saw was the Bloemencorso in Lichtenvoorde a couple of years ago. See photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcoupe/sets/72157594277873262/ That’s a big parade. Whole fields in the surrounding area are given over to growing all the flowers needed. As for insurance, I don’t know what they do…
There’s a bit of a stir going on in Amsterdam and the Hague at the moment. The reason is that the fifth World Family Congress has just opened at the RAI in Amsterdam for its three-day conference. The Dutch Minister for Youth and the Family, André Rouvoet, gave the opening address at the conference. And that was the reason for the stir: many, including fellow politicians in the Parliament in The Hague, felt that he was giving a stamp of approval to a conference that appears to have a very narrow view of what a family is.
Last night’s television news journal had an item on the conference, which included a snippet from Rouvoet’s video address. In part he said:
I’m aware of the outspoken views on the family that many of your organisations have. That’s why I want to challenge you to build bridges.
This was immediately followed by a spokesman from one of the participating organisations (Tradition, Family and Property – the name says it all, really) saying:
I don’t want to build a bridge to nowhere, I’m willing to cross bridges that go somewhere.
In response to a question from the interviewer, he then helpfully clarified that a bridge to gay parenting and gay marriage was a bridge to nowhere. What a surprise. And what really pisses me off is the Orwellian newspeak of it all. For example, the Howard Center is the think-tank behind the World Congress of Families, and which believes that the “natural human family is founded by the Creator, and is essential for a good society”. The director of the Howard Center, Larry Jacobs, is quoted as saying:
"It is clear that the left is shocked by the family congress because it brings a pro-family message to a city which they claim as their own territory."
There it is: pro-family – a positive-sounding term that actually means a rigid definition of what a family is and that is against any other meaning. It’s a great pity that Mr. Jacobs and others like the spokesman quoted above will never understand that families come in all shapes and sizes. Meanwhile he and his ilk will continue to spout their self-righteous bigotry. I also think it hypocritical. If you read the definition of the family given on the World Congress of Families V own web site, it goes to some pains to widen the narrow definition (man, woman and children) to include “alternatives”, which, it concedes:
If these alternatives have the same quality of love, upbringing and intergenerational transfer as the natural family, then they also belong to the category which we call ‘the family’.
However, the difference between these words and the deeds of the majority of the participants at this congress seem wide indeed, judging by the attitudes that I have seen and read.
But perhaps it’s hardly surprising really, because if you refer back to the Howard Center’s web site, you’ll find a much more hardline approach as to what the family is. Nary a whisper there of “alternatives”; indeed, I see that I’m headed for damnation:
Marriage between a man and a woman forms the sole moral context for natural sexual union. Whether through pornography, promiscuity, incest or homosexuality, deviations from these created sexual norms cannot truly satisfy the human spirit. They lead to obsession, remorse, alienation, and disease.
Here I think we see the true guiding spirit behind this conference: anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-secular. Now that sounds like a bridge to nowhere to me.
Our neighbour, Herman, is a milk farmer. A week ago, one of his cows gave birth to triplets. This only happens 5 times out of 10,000 births in cattle. What made it even more special is that all three of the calves are strong and healthy, and one of the calves has the father’s red and white colouring, while the other two have the mother’s black and white colouring.
You’ll notice that Herman’s dog, Rico, is also curious about these new arrivals. Being a Great Dane, he’s a good deal bigger than they are at the moment…
Each year, a couple of volunteers in our local neighbourhood (the buurt) organises a route for a bicycle ride through the local area. This year about thirty of us had an enjoyable day out, with a few stops for food and refreshment along the way. This is an opportunity to rediscover what a very pleasant part of the Netherlands this is, filled with cycle tracks that wind through the countryside.
More pictures here.
I’m jealous! – not only of the peaceful winding countryside (how did you decide on that part of Holland, anyway?), but of the fact that many of the riders are in jackets and long sleeves – it’s still abysmally hot here and will be for some time to come.
Mike – we’ve been having warm weather, but yesterday it was a reasonable 22C. We’ve had over 30C on a few days this year. As to why we chose this part of the Netherlands, quite simple really. Part of it was because of the countryside, but also it was in part because of the fact that it’s 19 meters above sea-level. In Gouda, we were almost 6 meters below, and I can’t dismiss the feeling that global warming is not to be dismissed…
Thursday was really warm. We went, with a friend, to have lunch by a local lake, and (for a couple of us) to cool off. Watching the local water-ski enthusiasts was pretty interesting too. They were of all ages. Unlike me, however, they (mostly) managed to remain upright on their skis. I think I’ll stick to just taking photos.
It helps if you imagine a tiny creature inflating its gas bladder to intimidate passers-by.
When I was a child – in Glossop and district – no one supposed that women over 50 were invisible. On the contrary, they blacked out the sky. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder like penalty walls, solid inside corsets that encased them from neck to thigh, so there was no getting past them: if you’d rushed them and butted them with your head, you’d have careened off, sobbing. They stood in bus queues muttering dark threats against the driver. They stood in line in the butcher’s shop, bloodied sawdust clogging their bootees, and amid the loops of sausages and the tripes they talked about My Operation – they boasted of their surgical crises, as Coriolanus boasted about the wounds he got for his mother country. Almost every one of these women was called Nellie, and the others were called Cissie. Why these names are synonymous with effeminate weakness I cannot imagine.
This last week, I’ve been making a couple of pilgrimages to bookshops and bookmarkets. First up was a day trip down to Maastricht, to the Dominicanen bookshop. This is notable for being in a converted church, and is probably the most beautiful bookshop in the Netherlands.
I confess that I didn’t actually buy anything there this time around, but it was worth it for the sightseeing, and the opportunity on the train journey to get stuck into Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s “The Angel’s Game”.
Next up was the trip last Sunday to the Hanseatic city of Deventer for the annual Bookmarket – the biggest one in Europe with 6 kilometers of bookstalls. Despite the pouring rain, I came away with some success: an armful of books including a first edition hardcover of Spider Robinson’s “Callahan’s Lady” and Anton Radevsky’s pop-up book on Spacecraft.
I have a small collection of pop-up books – I’m fascinated by paper engineering. But it’s nothing when compared to the collection of someone like Kees Keijzer. He was mentioned in the Volkskrant’s report on the bookmarket. Apparently, he has a collection of 2,500 pop-up books. That’s more than my complete library, for heaven’s sake.
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